The Secret Doctrine Volume 3.pdf

INTRODUCTORY
( Page 1) "POWER belongs to him who knows;" this is a very old axiom. Knowledge -
the first step to which is the power of comprehending the truth, of discerning the real
from the false - is for those only who, have freed themselves from every prejudice
and conquered their human conceit and selfishness, are ready to accept every and
any truth once it is demonstrated to them. Of such there are very few. The majority
judge of a work according to the respective prejudices of its critics, who are guided in
their turn by the popularity or unpopularity of the author, rather than by its own faults
or merits. Outside the Theosophical circle, therefore, the present volume is certain to
receive at the hands of the general public a still colder welcome than its two
predecessors have met with. In our day no statement can hope for a fair trial, or even
hearing, unless its arguments run on the line of legitimate and accepted enquiry,
remaining strictly within the boundaries of official Science or orthodox Theology.
Our age is a paradoxical anomaly. It is preëminently materialistic and as
preëminently pietistic. Our literature, our modern thought and progress, so called,
both run on these two parallel lines, so incongruously dissimilar and yet both so
popular and so very orthodox, each in its own way. He who presumes to draw a third
line, as a hyphen of reconciliation between the two, has to be fully prepared for the
worst. He will have his work mangled by reviewers, mocked by the sycophants of
Science and Church, misquoted by his opponents, and rejected even by the pious
lending libraries. The absurd misconceptions, in so-called cultured circles of society,
of the ancient Wisdom-Religion (Bodhism) after the admirably clear and scientificallypresented
explanations in Esoteric Buddhism, are a good proof in point. They might
have served as a caution even to those Theosophists who, hardened in an almost
life-long struggle in the service of their Cause, are neither timid with their pen, nor in
the least appalled by dogmatic (Page 2) assumption and scientific authority. Yet, do
what Theosophical writers may, neither Materialism nor doctrinal pietism will ever
give their Philosophy a fair hearing. Their doctrines will be systematically rejected,
and their theories denied a place even in the ranks of those scientific ephemera, the
ever-shifting "working hypotheses" of our day. To the advocate of the "animalistic"
theory, our cosmogenetical and anthropogenetical teachings are "fairy-tales" at best.
For to those who would shirk any moral responsibility, it seems certainly more
convenient to accept descent from a common simian ancestor and see a brother in a
dumb, tailless baboon, than to acknowledge the fatherhood of the Pitris, the "Sons of
God," and to have to recognise as a brother a starveling from the slums.
"Hold back!" shout in their turn the pietists. "You will never make of respectable
church-going Christians Esoteric Buddhists!"
Nor are we, in truth, in any way anxious to attempt the metamorphosis. But this
cannot, nor shall it, prevent Theosophists from saying what they have to say,
especially to those who, in opposing to our doctrine Modern Science, do so not for
her own fair sake, but only to ensure the success of their private hobbies and
personal glorification. If we cannot prove many of our points, no more can they; yet
we may show how, instead of giving historical and scientific facts - for the edification
of those who, knowing less than they, look to Scientists to do their thinking and form
their opinions - the efforts of most of our scholars seem solely directed to killing
ancient facts, or distorting them into props to support their own special views. This
will be done in no spirit of malice or even criticism, as the writer readily admits that
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